What is
Guitarmageddon?

Many of you already
know
that the national store, Guitar Center has a contest every year called
GuitarMageddon. Each store lets local guitar players enter to
perform a solo before a panel of three judges. The judges rate
the
performers on seven different areas of skill including: musical
composition,
originality, technique, dynamics, continuity, stage presence and
audience response.
Yes, there is an audience there to watch the brave get shot down and
the lucky
ones go on to the next level. It's seriously nerve wracking and
considered to be
pretty brutal among guitar players!

I don't remember what they
were doing before 2001 but in that year, the contest was in March and the solos
were just that, solos. No backup music, the performer had to play for
exactly three minutes. In 2001 they (Guitar Center) added tracks by way of
a CD that they had produced to back up the contestants. There were 12
tracks, each recorded by great musicians and the songs ranged from about 3
minutes to over 5.

The two winners selected
each week in each of the (now) 100 Guitar Center stores go on to compete with
each other in the following month. Only one winner will go on to compete
against the regional store winners and then the regional winners to on to the
semi-finals who then go on to the finals. Eventually, only one can win and
there is a pretty good prize at the end.

The following links will
tell you how Chodosh Guitar students did at Guitarmageddon. So far, we've
had two enter one year and six enter the next. Out of that we've had three
winners!